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    • PROVOCATIVE BEHAN INSPIRED BASELITZ’S GREATEST WORK

    April 26th, 2011

    GEORG BASELITZ (b. 1938) Die Grosse Nacht (The Big Night) Estimate: £2-3 million. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT MADE £2,393,250

    BRENDAN BEHAN was the inspiration for a major highlight of the most significant collection of contemporary German art of the 1960’s and 1970’s ever to come to auction.  Sotheby’s offering of The Duerckheim Collection in June includes masterful works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke.  The sale in London is expected to bring in more than £33 million sterling.

    Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) Stadtbild II Estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000. (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT MADE £4,633,250

    Georg Baselitz’s Die Grosse Nacht  (The Big Night) from 1962-63 is the most important German work of art of the post war period to come to the market.  It is the first of three paintings on this theme, one of which is housed in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne while the other is one long term loan at the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven.  When unveiled in 1963 at the artist’s first solo exhibition – the inaugural show of Michael Werner and Benjamin Katz’s gallery in West Berlin – it was confiscated by the Director of Public Prosecutions for “infringement of public morality”.  The artist and gallerists were fined.
    The work was inspired by a newspaper article about the Irish poet, Brendan Behan, who gave a reading of his poetry drunk on stage with his trouser flies open. For the artist the work represents the ultimate provocation, which he considers the ultimate and inevitable purpose of his painting.  Georg Baselitz has stated that perhaps he never has and never will make a finer painting than The Big Night Down the Drain. The work is estimated at £2-3 million.
    The 59 artworks in the Duerckheim Collection have not appeared on the market for over 30 years.  They will be offered at Contemporary Art evening and day auctions on June 29 and June 30.  The works include early photo paintings by Gerhard Richter and rare early works by Sigmar Polke, Blinky Palermo, Konrad Lueg, Jörg Immendorff and Eugen Schönebeck.
    UPDATE:  New artist records were established for Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Eugen Schönebeck, Markus Lüpertz and Georg Baselitz.  The Duerckheim Collection of contemporary German art, which comprised the first 34 lots, realised £60,401,650.

    Posted in ART, AUCTIONS | Comments Off on PROVOCATIVE BEHAN INSPIRED BASELITZ’S GREATEST WORK

    A GIRL’S EXTRA VERY BEST FRIEND

    April 26th, 2011

    Rare emerald cut pink diamond at Sotheby's. (Click on image to enlarge).

    A pink diamond weighing 10.99 carats will be offered by Sotheby’s at its sale of magnificent and noble jewels in Geneva on May 17.
    Graded as “fancy intense pink” it is part of a rare subgroup of diamonds known as type IIa and comprising less than 2% of all of the world’s gem diamonds. Stones in this group are chemically the purest of all diamond crystals.
    This stone features a classic emerald cut, a style of cutting normally associated with white diamonds.  It is immensely sought-after when found in the rare colours such as pink and blue.
    Estimated at CHF 8.3-14.8 million ($9-16 million), this stone is being offered for sale from a private collection and has not appeared on the market for more than 30 years.
    UPDATE:  International jewellers Leviev outbid four underbidders to purchase the 10.99 carat diamond for CHF 9,602,500/$10,840,358, the third highest price for a pink diamond.  It was the  ninth highest price for a diamond at auction.

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    SALE OF CONTENTS FROM THREE CONVENTS

    April 25th, 2011

    The throne chair from the convent auction. UPDATE: IT MADE 900.

    One of the four Piranesi prints. (click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: THE SET OF FOUR SOLD FOR 500.

    In Ireland in the 1990’s and a little bit beyond sales of contents  from former monasteries and convents were a regular feature on the auction scene.  Such sales are more rare nowadays.  So there is bound to be interest  in a single sale from three convents on Sunday May 1.
    The auction features objects from the Convents of Mercy in Cobh, Co. Cork and Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford  as well as from St. Marie’s of the Isle in Cork city. It will be held at St. Marie’s of the Isle in Cork city centre and will be conducted by P.J. O’Gorman auctioneer of Charleville, Co. Cork.
    It features a set of four large prints of Rome by Giovanni Battista Piranesi framed by the old Cork concern of Guy and Company.   There are library bookcases, Victorian and Regency dining tables, antique breakfast tables, a mahogany longcase clock by Mangan’s of Cork, a carved throne chair, display cabinets, a seven piece inlaid drawingroom suite, kneehole desks, four pianos, church pews, statues, brass and china among 416 lots.
    UPDATE:  The auction was almost a complete sellout with all but three lots finding buyers.

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    CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY MARKS 400TH ANNIVERSARY OF SPEED’S 1611 MAPS

    April 21st, 2011

    Speed's 1611 map of Munster. (click to enlarge)

    Cambridge University Library is marking the 400th anniversary of John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine.  Each of the proof maps is now available online at www.lib.cam.ac.uk/deptserv/maps/speed.html

    Great Britaine in 1611. (click to enlarge)

    The production of this atlas in 1611 was the first time that plans of counties and towns became available in print.  A major innovation it was an immediate success. It was the first time that at least 50 of the 73 towns included were mapped.
    There is a single sheet for for each county of England and Wales, a map of Scotland and each of the four Irish provinces. The map of ‘Mounster’ (Munster) identifies ‘Lymerick’ and Cork as the two biggest cities.  The extensive coastline is emphasised by ships and green fish-like creatures emerging from the sea.
    Cambridge University Library is selling single copies of the 60 plus images that make up Speed’s masterpiece.  Anne Taylor, Head of the Map Department at the University Library, said: “Although the Library holds several copies of the published atlas – including a first edition – it is the hand-coloured set of proofs produced between 1603 and 1611 that is one of its greatest treasures.”
    Cambridge acquired the proofs in 1968 after the British government refused an export licence. By 1627 the atlas cost 40 shillings.
    Born in Farndon, Cheshire in 1551 or 1552, John Speed was an historian as well as a cartographer. He paid tribute to earlier map-makers whose work he drew on, especially the county maps of Elizabethan surveyor Christopher Saxton. Speed wrote:  “I have put my sickle into other mens corne”.

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    ZHANG DAQIAN’S CHILDREN PLAYING UNDER A POMEGRANATE TREE

    April 20th, 2011

    Zhang Daqian's Children Playing under a pomegranate tree (click to enlarge). UPDATE: This sold for 74,580,000 Hong Kong Dollars over a top estimate of 20,000,000 HKD.

    Zhang Daqian’s (1899 – 1983) Children Playing under a Pomegranate Tree is a highlight of Sotheby’s sale of the Mei Yun Tang Collection in Hong Kong on May 31.

    Zhang, whose name is also spelt as Chang Dai-chien  was the fourth highest selling  artist at auction globally in 2010, behind Picasso, Qi Baishi and Andy Warhol, and ahead of Giacometti.  He was one of the most prodigious and celebrated Chinese artists of the twentieth century.

    The Mei Yun Tang Collection is internationally recognised as the most preeminent and comprehensive private collection of Zhang Daqian’s paintings, assembled by the late Mr. Kao Ling-mei and his wife Jan Yun-bor since 1940s. All the works in this sale are offered on the market for the very first time.  They are masterpieces from the 1940s to the 1960s.
    Renowned in China as a “modern Impressionist and Expressionist painter”, he immersed himself in the art of the West, forming a particularly close tie with Pablo Picasso, whom he met in 1953, and to whom he gifted a set of his own brushes, in the hope that these would enable Picasso to paint as finely as he.
    The sale features 25 paintings from this collection, and is expected to fetch in excess of HK$130 million / US$ 16.7 million.  Children Playing under a Pomegranate Tree is estimated at HK$15 – 20 million / US$1.9 – 2.6 million.
    See antiquesandartireland.com post for April 7.
    UPDATE:  The sale of the Mei Yun Tang Collection realised 680,740,000 HKD,

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    INFORMER’S MEDAL RECALLS 1798 TREACHERY

    April 20th, 2011
    IRISH history is peppered with stories about informers. Vital information passed to the enemy cost many a battle. An 18 carat oval gold medal at the Adams-Mealy’s Independence sale recalls one such unhappy event.  It dates to the year the United Irishmen, influenced by the ideals of the American and French revolutions, rebelled against British rule. the 1798 Rebellion went on for several months.

    The Master Wardens and Brethren of the Guild of Merchants of Dublin presented this gold medal to the informer Thomas Reynolds in 1798..

    On October 15, 1798 this oval gold medal was presented to Thomas Reynolds (1771 – 1836) the 1798 Informer.
    Though he had inherited considerable wealth poor management and a profligate lifestyle led Reynolds to virtual bankruptcy.  He joined the United Irishmen, but became nervous about their plans. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1798, he betrayed the meeting of the Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen. The meeting, held at the Dublin house of Oliver Bond, was broken up and the conspirators arrested, Oliver Bond was later murdered in prison. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, warned of the raid, was absent at the time, but forced to become a fugitive. He was arrested by Major Henry Sirr in a house in Thomas Street on May 19, dying later of wounds suffered during his arrest, and left without treatment by the authorities.
    For this act of treachery Reynolds was paid £5,000 together with a pension of £1,000 per year for life, and a government posting. In addition he was presented by the city merchants with this gold medal and a gold freedom box, the whereabouts of which is unknown. Reynolds and his wife Henrietta – whose sister Maltilda had married Theobald Wolfe Tone who is widely regarded as the father of Irish Republicanism  – left the country after the trials of the United Irishmen. He obtained various diplomatic posts becoming Consul at Copenhagen in 1819.
    The medal sold for 15,000.
    See antiquesandartireland.com posts for April 16 and April 13.

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    de Vlaminck, Monet, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso, de Chirico at Christie’s

    April 19th, 2011

    MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (1876-1958) Paysage de banlieue at Christie's, New York.

    Paintings and sculpture by masters Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, Pablo Picasso, and Giorgio de Chirico are a feature of Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art in New York on May 4.  There are 57 exceptional works in a sale which is expected to realise more than $160 million.

    Head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s New York Conor Jordan said the London sales in February demonstrated that collector demand for top-quality works offered fresh to the market continues to reach new heights.
    Among the most visually-arresting paintings in the sale is Paysage de banlieue, a fauvist masterpiece by celebrated French painter Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958). He was among the leaders of the movement dedicated to revolutionizing 20th century art through the use of pure, unmodulated color and expressive brushwork. Paysage de banlieue, painted in 1905, is estimated at $18-25 million.
    Picasso’s Les femmes d’Alger, version L is estimated at $20-30 million. It is one of the largest works within the artist’s groundbreaking series of 15 paintings created in 1955 in homage to the masterpiece of the same name by the 19th century master Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
    UPDATE:  DE VLAMINCK’S PAYSAGE DE BANLIEUE MADE $22,482,500

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    IAN HUMPHREYS STUDIO SALE IN WEST CORK

    April 18th, 2011

    A studio sale of the work of artist Ian Humphreys will be held by auctioneer Morgan O’Driscoll in Skibbereen, west Cork on Easter Sunday (April 24) at 4 p.m.  The British born (1956) artist and graduate of Exeter College of Art has work in a number of public and private collections.  He has lived on Heir Island off the west Cork coast since 1999.  The sale features 80 lots in a variety of media over dates from 1976 to 2010.

    There are no reserves.  Estimates are a guide. Here is a sample, click on any image to enlarge:

    UPDATE: All lots were sold in an auction that realised 120,000.  There were buyers from Texas, the UK, Holland, Germany and Ireland, some bidding on the internet.  The auction attracted a large crowd including people on holiday in west Cork for Easter.

    'Reencorren' by Ian Humphreys (est 800-1,400) UPDATE: THIS MADE 500 EURO.

    Ian Humpreys 'The Fisher King' (5,000-8,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,400 EURO.

    Ian Humphreys 'Juggling' (4,000-5,000) UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,300 EURO.

    Ian Humphreys 'Skeams' (400-500) UPDATE: THIS MADE 900 EURO.

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    THE STATE OF INDEPENDENCE

    April 16th, 2011

    Lot 546 is an Irish Flag from American Civil War period. The green flag was the basis of the unit colours of American Irish military organisations. This rare version is estimated at 1,000-1,500. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR 4,600

    THE fascination of relatively recent Irish history underlines the success of the Independence series of auctions.  These have been held jointly by James Adam in Dublin and Mealy’s of Castlecomer in April for the past six years.  This year the sale is on April 19 at Adams in Dublin.

    The top lot is a copy of the Proclamation (see antiquesandartireland.com post for April 13) estimated at 100,000-150,000. A small hand gun given by Countess Markievicz (a crack shot) to Seamus Babington of the 3rd Tipperary Brigade, I.R.A. is estimated at 800-1,400. (Note image attached to antiquesandartireland.com post for January 11, 2011).
    Private letters from Michael Collins (who lost his life during the Civil War in 1922) range in estimate from 800 to 6,000.  The 32 letters cover the period before the Easter Rising of 1916, his imprisonment and his development into a rebel leader. Terence MacSwiney’s Volunteer Diary from 1915 records his daily activities as a Volunteer organiser in Co. Cork. He was Lord Mayor of Cork when he died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in 1920. It is estimated at 6,000-8,000.
    There are 631 lots in total, including original photos and autograph books, pamphlets, medals, swords and flags. The sale will be held over two sessions at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. on April 19.
    UPDATE:  The Collins letters brought in 202,000, the Proclamation failed to sell, Terence MacSwiney’s Volunteer Diary made 7,500.  The sale brought in a hammer price of 655,000 and  was 80 per cent sold.

    Posted in AUCTIONS, COLLECTIBLES | Comments Off on THE STATE OF INDEPENDENCE

    RYANAIR FOUNDER’S COLLECTION AT CHRISTIE’S

    April 14th, 2011

    Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A., 1736-1801, Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire (1753-1801), 1785-90, pastel (£200,000-300,000). Click on image to enlarge. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £337,250

    WORKS from the collection of Dr. Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair, will be offered at Christie’s in London on July 14. Dr. Ryan, who died in 2007, was one of Ireland’s biggest philathropists and supporter of the arts.

    On offer are 400 lots from his estate, the Lyons Demesne in Co. Kildare.  This is a relatively small selection, but Christie’s say it will provide collectors and institutions around the world with a rare glimpse into a private Irish treasure trove. The sale is expected to bring in more than two million sterling.

    Highlights include an important full length portrait in pastel of Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire (1753-1801) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A., 1736-1801  (£200,000-300,000); a pair of George III giltwood and painted satinwood console tables in the manner of Thomas Chippendale the Younger (£50,000-80,000); a Louis XV Gobelins tapestry, by Claude Audran ( £30,000-50,000) and a white marble sculpture of Love Awakened by Giovanni Battista Lombardi, Rome, circa 1870 (£30,000-50,000).

    UPDATE:

    The sale of Lyons Demesne: Works of Art from the Collection of the late Dr. Tony Ryan realised £3,352,200,  selling 90% by value and 83% by lot.

    The top lot was Hugh Douglas Hamilton, R.H.A. (Dublin 1740-1808), Portrait of Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire (1753-1801), which realised £337,250

    All images © Christie’s Images Limited 2011

    Interior, the Lyons Demesne, the Drawing Room. (click on image to enlarge).

    The Gabrielli room. Click to enlarge)

    Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Edwards Freeman (£50,000-80,000). Click to enlarge. UPDATE: THIS MADE £49,250

    An interior view. (Click to enlarge)

    One of a pair of Irish George III oval glass mirrors (£6,000-9,000). Click to enlarge. UPDATE: THE PAIR MADE 21,250

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